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The Flames of Hope Ch 22
''Nolan Swift: The Flames of Hope Chapter 22~When Light Speed's Too Slow While I was the last person to go to sleep, because I usually woke up early, my mind told me to wake up before my body was willing. I climbed into the front seat and turned on the radio on low volume to check for any kind of news stories, but the reporters were still going on about the nationwide zombie protest and said that they were depicting how the common person was basically a zombie who buys anything that is advertised. After that, I turned off the radio and took a walk outside. I stood on the edge of the shore and watched the waves beat against the shore as storm clouds appeared right off the coast. Mount Tam could be seen right across the bay and we would be there in about two hours asking Atlas about our friends. As I looked at the dark storm clouds, all at once they seemed to break up and the bay became calm. In fact, it became eerily as the waves had stopped and the water was so still that it was like the reflecting pool in Washington DC. This extended to as far as I could see and I knew something was up. Then, the water started to slowly pull back from the shore and transform into a giant wave. It was at this point I ran back to the van where only a few people were awake. “Gear, it’s time to go!” I yelled. He rolled over to look at me as he rubbed his eyes. “Why so…” he began until he saw the huge wave forming behind me. Like a flash he was out of his seat and started the engine in one swift motion that make me look slow in comparison. I jumped into the passenger seat and we took off. “Hey!” Ruff yelled from his seat in back. “What did you do that for all of a sudden? It isn’t like there is going to be a lot of traffic or anything.” “Check the back window,” I heard someone say. I second later I heard ruff telling us to drive faster as the wave was catching up. However, as I looked back I noticed the water was only following us and wasn’t destroying any of the houses so I knew this wasn’t a natural tidal wave or something like that. However, Ruff was right and it was getting closer. “Can this thing go any faster?!” I asked Gear who was driving the best he could down the highway. “I did make something to give us a speed boost, but it is still in the testing stages,” he said, never taking his eyes off the road. “If we don’t go faster, pretty soon we’ll be testing this things crash test rating when faced with a tsunami,” I told him and he put on a face that told me the gears in his head were turning. “Alright, do you see the little red button?” he asked. I looked around and found it right on the shifter to the car. I was amazed I hadn’t noticed it before. “Yes,” I told him as I put my finger on it. “Push the little red button,” he told me and I did as I was told. A second later, the car made all kinds of mechanical sounds as it seemed to change shape. The roof seemed to fold downward causing everyone to duck out of reflex. The front of the car became much more streamlined. The back doors completely came off and were swallowed by the approaching wave. Then, two huge things that looked like rockets came out from under the floor of the trunk and I could hear them warming up. “You might want to put on your seatbelt everyone,” he told everyone, and a second later the engines ignited with what looked like some kind of Greek fire rocket fuel. I felt myself being pushed back into my seat as we moved at speeds that I didn’t even know were possibly for a car to move at. I felt like any second we were going to blast off into space or something. I watched as the scenery passed us by in flashes and I wondered if Gear could even see where we were going. “Hey Swift, we’re going so fast I can't see where we’re going,” he said to me. I felt like rolling my eyes but instead I jumped up from my set and pushed Gear out of the driver’s seat. I sat down and pushed my eyes to keep up with all the things in front of me. The push power caused Gear to go rolling into the back of the van. I didn’t have time to focus on him as I watched the road, my eyes darting everywhere at once to avoid cars, trees, and people. “How do you slow down?!” I called back to him from the driver’s seat. “Hit the red button again!” he yelled and I reached for it. My arm felt like it was being pushed backward by the G forces, but I managed to get my hands on the shifter and pressed the red button. The rocket engines in back flickered a few times before shutting down and folding back into the floor of the van. The roof and front of the van took on their original shape and we soon slowed down to less than one G of force. Before long, we slowed down to just over the legal speed limit. “What was that!” Tuff yelled from the back seat. “I may have installed a rocket system to the van when I improved it,” Gear said as he climbed up off the floor. “Oh,” Ruff said. “Can we do it again?” “NO!” everyone yelled at the same time. “Just asking, it was awesome,” Ruff said, but then crossed his arms and slouched down in his seat. I looked over and saw an exit sign for Mount Tam in about a mile which was surprising. We had done an hour’s worth of driving in about 2 minutes so I guess his rockets did their job, just a bit too well as only someone with quick enough reflexes would be able to drive at those speeds and ADHD only helped so much. I looked out the window toward the bay and the water had once again gone still and I just wanted to stay away from it. “Well guys, who’s ready to see Atlas?” I asked and I felt like we were one step closer to finding the other campers. '''Next Chapter' Chapter 23~Round One, Fight! 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